Hi Folks,
Received my Zoomer back from Electronics Innovations(apopovic @
hammond.CS.UNLV.EDU) today after they upgraded the hardware on it to double
it's speed.
Initial Impressions:
It's definitely faster than it was originally! I love the performance on it,
specially in the Expert mode. I run four apps simultaneously: Notebook,
Datebook, Addressbook and calculator and switching between them now takes less
than two seconds. It takes less than six seconds to launch any one of these
apps from scratch! Much much zippier! : ) Note: no I have not done any real
technical benchmarking....sorry. If someone can tell me if there is shareware
out there that will benchmark a zoomer, I am willing to try it. (I don't have
Norton Utilities myself)
My zoomer's present speed is what it originally should have been. It's too bad
the manufacturers did not make it so, the zoomer would have really caught on,
IMHO. I've launched all the apps that come in the Zoomer's ROM and they all
seem to be working fine, and faster.
Couple of things to watch out for:
1. In expert mode, when you click on the launcher you get a choice to "exit to
dos", when I selected this it did close out all apps and shut down the zoomer.
However, when I turned it back on...it kept crashing after trying to load
LOADER. I kept getting:
system error. Error number KR-09
Don't know what was causing this but had to take all the batteries out and
reinitialize the system in order to get back in. Luckily I had all the expert
mode files on my pcmcia memory card and it was not a big deal. I did not try
to replicate the problem again but you all might watch out for this possible
bug with the expert mode. (also, the launcher screen no longer remains in the
background once you launch other apps, it's gone.)
---------------------------------------------------------------
2. Since the zoomer is so much faster now, the com port it has is running at
38400 baud instead of 19200. I had to get help from the hardware upgrade
source: Alexander Popovich(apopovic @ hammond.CS.UNLV.EDU) to get me
communicating with my PC again.
For instance, I used to use Palm Connect to talk to my zoomer and transfer
files back and forth between my pc and my zoomer. Far as I can tell, the
fastest rate that the Palm Connect software can "talk" is 9600. Since the com
port on the zoomer is talking 38400, they don't see each other. If anyone out
there knows a way to speed up the rate Palm Connect talks at, please let me
know.
I ended up using the old standby, Zdos, with the following parameter: Zdos
/p:2 /b:38400 in order to be able to exchange files once again with my zoomer.
Thanks for the tip, Alexander!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
That's all for now folks, gotta get back to watching the opening day ceremonies
in Atlanta!
zooming with speed now,
dom chang